Greg Lukianoff (2018)

It’s hard to know whether to be terrified or simply shocked by this book: it depends on whether you believe that the currents at work on US campuses must inevitably make their way to Europe. Certainly we see many of the same issues: a reduction in the resilience of the student population, a narrower focus, more stress. But we haven’t (yet) seen the corollaries to the same extent: no-platforming, triggering, the equation of words with violence that leads to all sorts of impossible situations for academic institutions. Maybe the best way to treat this book is as a warning about one possible direction of travel: I still hope that we can keep universities as places where anyone can hold any opinion for which they can generate a reasoned and evidenced argument – and one that they’re willing to defend intellectually against those with contrary ideas.

4/5. Finished Wednesday 1 January, 2020.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Roger Zelazny (1972)

A characteristic Zelazny mix of sci-fi and fantasy. You can clearly hear the echoes of Amber in the general set-up of the story, even though in a far less well-developed form.

3/5. Finished Saturday 21 December, 2019.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

James Burke (1978)

The original (I think) work of trying to weave the threads of technological change through history – and possibly still the best. In terms of the broad sweep of history and the wedding of social and scientific factors, it’s hard to beat.

I don;t know how many of Burke’s connections are genuinely novel to him: did anyone before postulate that the Black Death led to the emergence of automation by making machines cheaper than manpower for the first time? Or did he get it from an earlier source? Whichever: for a lot of people (myself included) this book (which I first read over twenty years ago) was our first exposure to these ideas, and indeed to the idea that science and technology are in a two-way conversation with society.

4/5. Finished Wednesday 18 December, 2019.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Serhii Plokhy (2018)

A surprising history of the Chernobyl accident. Surprising at a number of levels, not least the (small) number of direct deaths, which I always had the impression was higher. Plokhy links the events into the wider run of Soviet (and, later, Russian and Ukrainian) history, seeing the accident as a catalyst for the political changes that followed. While I’d’ve enjoyed more technical detail, the breadth and depth are welcome.

4/5. Finished Tuesday 17 December, 2019.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Bernard Crick (2002)

Should be required reading for everyone. An exploration of the complexity of what it means for something to be “democratic” – and contrasting this with what it means to be populist, majoritarian, and all the other pretenders for the crown.

4/5. Finished Tuesday 17 December, 2019.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)